PARIS: The 2024 Paris Summer Olympics and Paralympics cost the French state just under 6 billion euros ($6.9 billion), the national audit body announced in an “initial estimate” on Monday.

Government expenditure on the organization of the two sporting extravaganzas last summer cost 2.77 billion euros, which included 1.4 billion euros for security.

A further 3.19 billion euros were spent on work linked to infrastructure projects. More than 35,000 members of the security forces were deployed, with the security bill including 315 million euros paid in bonuses to the police.

The Olympics ran from July 26 to August 11, while the Paralympics took place from August 28 to September 8, with organizers making the most of historic sites in central Paris, either as venues or the backdrop to the events.

The Games were widely hailed as highly successful. The national audit body said there would be a “heightened interest” in the figures because France is also preparing to host the 2030 Winter Olympics in the French Alps.

It is the first time actual figures for France have been announced, although the president of the national audit body, Pierre Moscovici, said in 2024 they would cost the state “three, maybe four, five billion euros”.

Moscovici, a former French finance minister and European Union Commissioner, said after the release of the figures on Monday that “there is really nothing to argue about”. Until now, only the separate 4.4 billion-euro costs of the local organizing committee (COJO), which represented a surplus of 76 million euros, have been made public.

That money came almost exclusively from private financing and from Solideo, the body responsible for delivering Olympic construction projects, which was in part publicly financed.

A more detailed report will be published in October as other costs are not yet known. The audit body added that because of a lack of concrete information, the figures did not include “the positive and negative impact the Games had on economic activity”. — AFP

It said, however, that the Games were “indisputably a success with the public and the media”. Moscovici said the amount of public spending for the Paris Games “seems to be more limited than for London 2012”.

The Paris Olympics are most often compared to the Games in London, given their similar geographical setting. Another report on the legacy of the Games will be published in 2026. — AFP